[Peace-discuss] The Christmas Truce of 1914: "Threat to National Security"?

[Robert Naiman]

I wonder what role the Pope's call for a Christmas truce played in the
actions of the troops. The Pope's call was on the governments, and the
governments rejected it, but media reported the Pope's call and
perhaps some of the troops knew about it and this gave some of them
more courage to act on their own initiative.

If that's true, perhaps it's a precedent with some relevance for today.

The Milgrom experiment is often invoked to suggest the tendency of
people to follow authority, even when the instructions of authority
are barbarous.

But an important thing that the Milgrom experiment found was that if
one person speaks up, others are much more likely to rebel.

In larger social phenomena, "one person speaking up" doesn't
necessarily cut it, if that is not a person of authority. But the
broader point remains; if someone can construct a credible
counter-authority, decisive change is possible.

In the Vietnam War documentary "Hearts and Minds," there's a
compelling scene in which Daniel Ellsberg describes watching one of
the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations at the Pentagon from the window of
Robert McNamara's office, and thinking to himself as he watched,
"Those people are following their consciences. What would happen if I
followed mine?"


On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 10:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
> "NOTHING appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a
> philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the
> few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments
> and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this
> wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as FORCE is always on the side of
> the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is
> therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim
> extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to
> the most free and most popular..."
>
> --David Hume, "Of the First Principles of Government" (1768)
>
> On 12/25/10 9:32 PM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>> It's cool.
>>
>> And cute, too.
>>
>> But the sad truth is that these young men who could see the benefits
>> of friendship, and had in their hands the tools (the weapons) to
>> stop the war, CHOSE (made a conscious decision) to hunker back down
>> under their Evil Masters and horrifically slaughter one another for
>> over 3 more years.
>>
>> After all, it was what your government expected of you...
>>
>> "Shooting Germans is sort of like shooting rabbits."
>>
>> And they fought to make WW2 possible.
>>
>> Cheers.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 12/26/2010 3:56 AM, Robert Naiman wrote:
>>>
>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/the-christmas-truce-of-19_b_801243.html
>>>
>>>
>>>
> The Christmas Truce of 1914: "Threat to National Security"?
>>>
>>> As we celebrate Christmas 2010, 100,000 US troops languish in
>>> Afghanistan, and Bradley Manning sits in "maximum custody
>>>
>>> <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-eviatar/bradley-mannings-confinem_b_800737.html>"
>>> in Quantico for the alleged crime of disclosing classified
>>> "secrets" about U.S. foreign policy - "secrets" like the video
>>>
>>> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/05/wikileaks-us-army-iraq-attack>
>>> of U.S. troops killing two /Reuters/ employees in Iraq, a video
>>> that the U.S. military refused to release to /Reuters/.
>>>
>>> It is a particular stain on our country to be at war during the
>>> Season of Peace, just as it is a particular stain on our country to
>>> be at war during the Olympics. "Peace on Earth" should stick in our
>>> throats a bit this holiday season, when our own government is
>>> bombing other people's countries, a practice which we have, so far,
>>> been unable to stop.
>>>
>>> The idea that there is something especially offensive about
>>> prosecuting war during Christmas is longstanding. On December 7,
>>> 1914, Pope Benedict XV called for
>>>
>>> <http://www.harrisondaily.com/opinion/article_758ae5c8-a68d-59f3-9a4f-bb5df3dbcbce.html>
>>> an official Christmas truce in the war in Europe, "that the guns
>>> may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang."
>>>
>>> The Pope's call was rejected by the warring governments, and two
>>> words he used suggest a reason: "at least." The Pope's remarks
>>> strongly suggested that he objected to the slaughter on the other
>>> 364 days as well. And so, the generals may have argued, it was a
>>> slippery slope. Allow the troops to have a Christmas holiday from
>>> killing each other, and they might begin to get even funnier ideas.
>>> Next they'll be demanding Easter, then Yom Kippur and Eid al-Fitr.
>>> Soon you won't be able to have a war on any day of the year. So
>>> there was no official truce.
>>>
>>> However, in what was arguably one of the most morally compelling
>>> acts of spontaneous mass civil disobedience in recorded human
>>> history, German and British troops took matters into their own
>>> hands, negotiating their own Christmas cease-fires in their
>>> opposing trenches on the Western Front, exchanging Christmas carols
>>> and gifts, and even playing soccer. The story is told in the 2005
>>> movie, Joyeux Noel ("Merry Christmas"), which was nominated for an
>>> Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. It would be a
>>> significant advance in human civilization if this movie would take
>>> its rightful place alongside "Miracle on 34th Street" and "It's a
>>> Wonderful Life" as standard Christmas fare.
>>>
>>> It's particularly appropriate to reflect on this history now, as TV
>>> talking heads repeatedly pontificate without a shred of evidence
>>> that the WikiLeaks disclosures "threaten our national security,"
>>> because in its time, as Stanley Weintraub reported in his 2001 book
>>> "Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914
>>> <http://books.google.com/books?id=vUKgAAAAMAAJ>," not only was the
>>> Christmas truce considered a threat to "national security" in the
>>> warring countries; even the knowledge that it had taken place was
>>> initially suppressed. The /New York Times/ finally broke the press
>>> blockade on December 31, 1914, after which the British press
>>> followed suit.
>>>
>>> Doesn't it seem ridiculous today that news media initially tried to
>>> suppress reports about the Christmas truce of 1914, apparently in
>>> the belief that such information was a "threat to national
>>> security"?
>>>
>>> Won't it seem ridiculous someday that people who knew better once
>>> claimed that WikiLeaks was a "threat to our national security," and
>>> were taken seriously?
>>>
>>> How long do you suppose that will take to occur?
>>>
>>> Merry Christmas. Let there be peace on earth.
>>>
>>>
>>> -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy
>>> www.justforeignpolicy.org <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org>
>>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org <mailto:naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
>
>



-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern